Marie Brennan

consider environmental factors.

The first play I choreographed a fight for was Wait Until Dark, where I had to deal with a blind character, a sighted character, near-total darkness, and a knife. That was an interesting challenge.)

consider the weather.

What about people? Is there anybody else around?

There’s a very tense scene in Casino Royale that takes place in the middle of a crowd, with the combatants struggling over a knife without anybody around them noticing.

You need to have a clear sense of these things before you can communicate them to the reader.

you don’t need a background in combat to write these scenes well.

It does help, however, to have a grasp of the basic principles of fighting.

To be sure, in some cases you may decide it’s worth accepting a blow in order to create an opening you can exploit.

I don’t know of any fighting style that builds itself around the principle of “let him hit you” or “don’t try to hit him.”